Scientists discover 'impossible' star next to supermassive black hole at centre of our galaxy

By: Maksim Panasovskyi | 04.03.2023, 14:36
Scientists discover 'impossible' star next to supermassive black hole at centre of our galaxy

We once wrote about 'impossible' galaxies discovered by the James Webb telescope. Now let's talk about an 'impossible' star. It was discovered by researchers at the University of Cologne.

Here's What We Know

The star is called X3a. It is in the formation stage and is located near the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* in the centre of our galaxy. The combination of these two features has not been possible until now.

It is accepted that no new stars can form near black holes. All the stars near black holes are several billion years old. In the case of X3a, it is assumed that it began forming from the gas cloud that orbited Sagittarius A* and then moved to where it is today.

X3a is an order of magnitude larger than the Sun and has a mass 15 times that of our Sun. Scientists believe it began to form a few light years away from the Sagittarius A* black hole. It is not excluded that the same principle of young stars also operates in other galaxies. The James Webb Space Telescope will be able to test this hypothesis.

Source: Phys.org